- Hungary: Regime plans to shut down only nuclear power plant amid drought
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Hungary has announced it will shut down its only nuclear power plant after record-low levels on the Danube River reduced the water available for cooling its reactors. Prime Minister Peter Magyar said the Paks Nuclear Power Plant in central Hungary would be powered down on Sunday, the first full shutdown in its 44-year history. The plant supplies nearly half of Hungary’s electricity. Magyar said output had fallen to 965 megawatts on Friday and to 240 overnight, far below the normal 2,000. The Soviet-built, four-reactor plant south of Budapest siphons water from the Danube for cooling, but low river levels have impacted its pumps’ ability to draw in enough water.” (08/02/26)
- Bitcoin cold-wallet attack spreads to 4,500 addresses as losses near $89 million
Source: CoinDesk
“The attacker working through Coldcard-generated keys is now emptying wallets worth a few thousand dollars each. Galaxy Research flagged a third wave of sweeps early Sunday, roughly 208 bitcoin drained from 1,912 addresses between Friday midday and Saturday morning UTC. That is just over a tenth of a bitcoin per victim. … The flaw traces to a March 2021 firmware build that routed seed generation to a predictable software randomiser instead of the chip’s hardware one, leaving a bounded set of possible keys that anyone with the disclosure and enough compute can reproduce offline, without ever touching a device.” (08/02/26)
- Icelanding pirates steal ship, abduct crew
Sourc: ABC News
“Icelandic coast guards and special forces seized a ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson and detained its crew, officials in the Arctic island nation said Saturday. The Icelandic Coast Guard said the crew of whaling ship Hvalur 9 requested assistance on Thursday evening because they believed their safety was under threat from the protest vessel Bandero. It said the Bandero ignored coast guards’ instructions to leave Icelandic waters, and later an order to stop its engines. Coast guards and the police special forces Viking Squad boarded the vessel around midnight on Thursday and detained its crew. Watson was not aboard.” (08/01/26)
- Cyberattacks on water systems spread to seven US states
Source: United Press International
“At least seven states have suffered cyberattacks on water systems as cities and states work to keep the water supplies safe. There has been no indication that any water supply is unsafe to drink, the New York Times reported. Minnesota first reported a cyberattack and now Michigan has also reported attacks. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency said in a release that it’s ‘observing a significant increase in cyber threat actors targeting programmable logic controllers in the Water and Wastewater Systems sector. CISA urges critical infrastructure owners, operators, and integrators to remove publicly exposed PLCs and other operational technology from the Internet as soon as possible. Threat actors targeting exposed PLCs have modified passwords to lock out operators and disconnected the PLCs by changing their IP addresses.'” [editor’s note: Somehow we had robust water systems without Internet connections for decades – TLK] (08/01/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/08/01/cyberattacks-water-systems-7-states/5441785618113/
- Russia: At least three killed in Moscow restaurant bombing
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“An explosion Saturday at a Moscow restaurant that killed three people and wounded 21 others was a bombing, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said, the Tass state news agency reported. … An unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive device into the restaurant died in the blast as did a security guard and a patron, the news agency said. Ria Novosti reported the woman attempted to smuggle the bomb into the establishment but the security guard refused to let her in before the bomb exploded. … The Kommersant daily newspaper cited its own sources as saying that the bomb had been intended to maim and kill guests who were enjoying themselves on the restaurant’s summer terrace outside. It suggested that the bomb had been set off by someone else remotely and that the woman carrying it may not have known that it was an explosive device.” (08/02/26)
- OH: Lawyer for pol’s ex-wife files for restraining order as abuse allegations swirl
Source: CBS News
“The ex-wife of Republican Rep. Max Miller asked a court Thursday to issue a restraining order blocking the two-term Ohio congressman from contacting her lawyer, as her allegations that he assaulted her — which Miller denies — continue to plague his contentious reelection campaign. Miller pledged on Sunday to stay in the race as he vehemently denied the recent allegations that have swirled against him. … In court filings, ex-wife Emily Moreno alleged that Miller has repeatedly had physical and verbal altercations with her attorney, Andrew Zashin, after recent court hearings in an ongoing custody battle. The pair already have court-ordered restraining orders against each other. They share a young daughter after a brief marriage that began in 2022 and ended in June 2025. … Miller represents a Republican-leaning district in the Cleveland area and is running for a third term. Moreno is the daughter of Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno.” (08/02/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/max-miller-ex-wife-emily-moreno-allegations-restraining-order-lawyer/
- How “School Choice” Makes Every School a Government School, Florida Edition
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“The ‘school choice’ movement in the US supports tax-funded ‘vouchers,’ targeted tax credits, and ‘charter’ schools, on the theory that giving parents more options on where, how, and by whom their children are taught isn’t just a good thing, but a thing that government ought to be, and can legitimately be, involved in. Unfortunately, the real effect of that kind of ‘school choice’ is to turn all the available options into carbon copies of the ‘public’ school system it supposedly helps parents and students escape.” (08/02/26)
- The Yearning for Stasis
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“Stasis is a state in which opposing forces balance so precisely that nothing moves. It is a useful word because it names something real, and something increasingly common in political and social argument. There are people, and indeed whole movements, who want the world to stop where it is now, as though the present moment were a plateau to be defended rather than a point passed through on the way to somewhere else. This yearning deserves examination, because it is often mistaken for Conservatism, and the mistake matters.” (07/31/26)
- The dishonesty inside Trump’s new tariff plan
Source: Washington Post
by Fareed Zakaria“The administration has declared that countries ranging from Cambodia and China to Norway, Japan and Australia have failed to keep products made with forced labor out of their markets, and that this failure burdens American commerce. The charge is so obviously spurious and sweeping (Sweden is as bad as Cambodia?) that it gives away the game. It was almost certainly devised because the White House needed a legal pretext to subvert the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling against Trump. This is more than ordinary political spin. The president appears to be ordering the United States government to formally certify as fact something it knows is not true. Agencies must publish findings, construct legal arguments and affix the authority of the American state to a falsehood manufactured for the apparent purpose of evading the nation’s highest court.” (07/31/26)
- How Federal Overspending Causes Your High Grocery Bills
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“The federal government is spending $7 trillion, yet only collects $5 trillion. This $2 trillion annual deficit destroys the purchasing power of every dollar in your bank account. What is even clearer is that Washington politicians know no other way to get your vote than to buy it through reckless spending. This constant theft of your wealth is a major frustration of mine, and sadly, most Americans are too busy to take the time to understand the destructive effect on our nation’s future.” (08/02/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/how-federal-overspending-causes-your
- Joe Biden confessed to everything on tape
Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley“For years, former President Joe Biden has fought to prevent the release of tapes acquired by former special counsel Robert Hur in his investigation. After those efforts collapsed this month, it became clear why Biden and his aides were so determined to keep the public from seeing the evidence. In addition to showing Biden’s mental diminution even before he was elected president, the tapes show that Biden effectively confessed to the crimes Hur would later excuse on the grounds of his mental infirmity.” (08/01/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/6002930-biden-classified-materials-confession/
- Reflecting Pool controversy is mirror for our broken politics
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus“In the 104 years that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has stood on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the event it is most closely associated with is the 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’, speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. But today, far from a symbol of national unity, this body of water has created a wave of anger and discontent. On Friday, United States Attorney for the District of Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro did the right thing and dropped charges against David Hearn, a former Olympic athlete who had been facing 10 years in jail for allegedly defacing the monument. Hearn was accused of pulling up pieces of the new sealant installed this year during President Donald Trump’s renovation of the pool. He claims he was just curious about the preexisting damage he saw. It may have been as annoying as chipping away at dried paint, but it wasn’t a felony.” (08/01/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-reflecting-pool-controversy-mirror-broken-politics
- Is AI Leading Us Inexorably Towards Dystopian Collectivism?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates“In The Father We Never Had: Artificial Intelligence Before and After, Cristian Daniel Bolocan lays out a deeply unsettling roadmap for the future of human governance. He describes a highly automated, frictionless ‘gilded cage’ where humanity willingly trades its autonomy and intellectual capacity for the supreme safety, stability, and material comfort provided by a centralized network of collaborated artificial intelligences. … Is Bolocan’s destination dystopian, or merely uncomfortable to contemplate?” (08/01/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/08/is-ai-leading-us-inexorably-towards.html
- Aggression? Or self-defense?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton“Obviously, free-market/free-enterprise anarchists (like us at TPOL) believe we have come up with the answer to Von Mises’ ‘main political problem.’ Get rid of mandatory human government! Now, we understand that such a statement is considered ‘extremist’ and not viewed as either feasible or desirable by the general public. And certainly not by those in power. So we are condemned when we act to provide that situation, in word or deed. And that is the point of the question: when we resist human government and human governors (political rulers) are we acting in self-defense, or are we taking aggressive action against them, and those who support them? Is it extreme to take action against the system?” (08/01/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/08/01/aggression-or-self-defense/
- Taxes Need a Rebrand
Source: Common Dreams
by Michael Jarvis“Few issues matter more to the future of societies than how we fund the systems we all depend on. Yet tax remains one of the most misunderstood and poorly communicated public issues of our time. For many people, taxation is associated with complexity, bureaucracy, and cost. Public debate often centers on what individuals or businesses are required to give up, rather than what those contributions make possible. That is the problem. Tax’s biggest challenge isn’t policy. It’s a narrative challenge that every society faces, whether in the United States, Argentina, Botswana, Thailand, or anywhere in between. Too often, tax is framed as a burden instead of a form of shared investment.” [editor’s note: I think I’ll just stick with “theft” – SAT] (08/01/26)
- Censorship never stops with just two words
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Angel Eduardo“Members of the Los Angeles City Council would like a word or two — to ban. Last July, the council adopted a motion to prohibit two terms — a racial epithet and a slur against women — during the legally required public comment periods of their meetings. … you may loathe the words in question and never use them yourself. You may share the council’s desire to make public comment more civil and appropriate. You may believe Harris-Dawson and the other council members’ hearts are in the right place. But make no mistake: The council is effectively claiming the authority to ban any words it decides are inappropriate or offensive in the future.” (08/01/26)
- West Point Professor Challenges Ban on “Un-American, Divisive…Radical, Extremist, and Irrational Theories”
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“There is an important lawsuit being litigated in the Southern District of New York over the limits of free speech and academic freedom for faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Professor Tim Bakken, West Point’s longest-serving civilian law professor, is challenging new Trump Administration regulations that allegedly constitute unconstitutional prior restraints on academic publications and limit academic freedom and free speech. Professor Bakken has been a public critic of West Point’s leadership in public writing, including a report concerning alleged wrongdoing by senior West Point military officers. He is also the author of a book entitled The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military. The class action was filed on behalf of more than 100 civilian faculty members against West Point and several academy leaders, specifically challenging two policies issued in 2025.” (08/01/26)
- Americans Hate the Two-Party System But Don’t Know What Should Replace It, ISMA Populism Survey Finds
Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig“Complaining about the two-party system may be the last genuinely bipartisan activity in American life. It gets said at dinner tables and on cable panels, a beat before someone announces that what this country really needs is a third party. A new survey from the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, fielded through YouGov in late June, confirms Americans overwhelmingly dislike our political system. But what it also found is that familiarity with possible reform options remains low. The survey suggests a way forward for negotiating this information gap and implementing reforms.” (07/31/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/americans-hate-the-two-party-system
- Let’s Stay Human
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“There’s a creepy tweet going around by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recommending that parents feed their kids’ interests and schedules into ChatGPT so it can generate a daily custom-made bot podcast to listen to on their morning drive to school. Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch posted the viral reply, ‘What if you just talked to your children?’ Which is a crazy thing to have to say. But here we are. They’re trying to make us worse. These billionaire generative AI corporations reap profits by making us worse human beings. They want us to become less human. Less connected. Less creative. Less capable. Less wise. Less intelligent. They want to atrophy our ability to speak, write, research, relate, draw, make music, and cultivate intimate connections with the most important people in our lives, and then sell those things back to us at the hands of some chatbot.” (08/01/26)
- Medical Segregation: A Coming Coup in American Medical Care?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Wendy McElroy“Federalization leads medicine down a very bad path toward bureaucracy and away from competitive markets, which are the best hope to deliver quality at reasonable cost. Remember Covid? Remember President Ronald Reagan’s famous comment, ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’?’ Bureaucrats helped us good and hard with Covid; now they want to help with women’s health. They make no pretense of ‘helping’ men good and hard, of course. To men, the program offers a medical segregation that is as medically unfair as it would be to medically segregate blacks along racial lines. Clearly, medical differences between women and men sometimes require totally different hands-on care; but medical differences, like breast cancer rates, is not what is being discussed. Political and economic power is under discussion.” (08/01/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/medical-segregation-a-coming-coup-in-american-medical-care/
- The Automated Overton Window
Source: Liberalism.org
by Eli Talbert“Consider a hypothetical tenant in Phoenix, Arizona, asking an AI assistant whether allowing five-story mixed-use apartments near a light-rail stop would make housing cheaper before she writes to her city council member. The answer cites the City of Phoenix Planning and Development Department, notes displacement, and summarizes the mayor’s affordability set-aside. Nothing feels coercive. The tenant remains free to disagree. Yet a practical risk is already present. The AI has chosen which sources to retrieve, which follow-up questions to encourage, which frame feels neutral—and which serious alternatives will take extra effort to find. By the time she reaches the public meeting, the tenant may have concluded that the boundaries of the argument are settled.” (07/31/26)
- Trump Has Revolutionized Executive Power
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama“As we move toward the end of the Trump era, we need to reckon with the changes his administration has wrought in the American system of government. The most significant is the enormous concentration of power, not just in the executive branch as a whole, but in the office of the president. Any successor administration, Republican or Democratic, will inherit these powers, and will have to decide how it wants to define the limits of executive authority in the future.” (07/31/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-grave-choice-facing-the-next
- The applause that disrupted nothing — yet still led to an arrest
Source: Isabelle Brito
“The city commission of Emporia, Kansas, has endured countless hours of public criticism. What it could not endure was a few seconds of clapping. At its July 22 meeting, citizens contested a proposed data center, briefly applauding between public comments as one speaker left the microphone and another approached. Commissioners sometimes ignored the applause and other times warned the audience to stop. But their warnings soon expanded to cover even more muted reactions like finger-snapping and a woman in the back of the room silently waving her hands. When high school physics teacher Lux Claridge clapped five times for a speaker, a commissioner told officers to remove the next person who clapped. But instead of waiting for another round of applause, officers immediately ordered Claridge to leave.” (07/31/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/applause-disrupted-nothing-yet-still-led-arrest
- The Tuition Rule 14 States Decided to Ignore
Source: Town Hall
by Jay Rogers“I’ve spent 30 years as a fiduciary, which mostly means telling people why they can’t do the thing they want to do. When a trustee wants to make a distribution the trust document doesn’t authorize, there are two honest answers. Amend the document, or don’t make the distribution. What you don’t do is rewrite the beneficiary definition until the distribution qualifies, book it, and hope nobody opens the file for 20 years. About 14 states took the third option on college tuition. Somebody finally opened the file. On July 24, Judge David Dugan of the Southern District of Illinois struck down the state’s in-state tuition rules, its RISE Act, and its DREAM Act as unconstitutional for illegal [sic] aliens. A day earlier, the Justice Department sued Colorado, the 14th such case. Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nebraska have already surrendered; suits are pending against a dozen more, including California and Virginia.” (08/01/26)
- What happens when the US drives away the world’s best talent?
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Veronique de Rugy“There are many ways to measure the health of a country. One way is growth of gross domestic product. Another is economic productivity. But there’s a less conventional measure worth watching: Do the world’s most talented and ambitious people want to immigrate here? Throughout most of America’s history, the answer has been an emphatic yes. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists and strivers from around the world have chosen the United States because they believed they could build something, discover something or start a business while making a better life in this country. We should worry about the day when that is no longer true. Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems determined to make that day arrive sooner rather than later.” (07/31/26)
- Why We Still Read the Declaration
Source: Law & Liberty
by Wilfred M McClay“America’s founding document remains the guide we need to understand our past—and our future.” (07/31/26)
https://lawliberty.org/forum/why-we-still-read-the-declaration/
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 08/01/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“PART FOUR: Let’s Examine JC Filings of Appeal of the Disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of NH.” (08/01/26)
- Free Talk Live, 08/01/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Sarah in NM calls about ‘public choice financing’ :: Dave Ridley calls about AI film festival :: venice.AI :: Dave gives a teaser for his fiction work :: socialism vs. capitalism :: U.S. troops killed in Jordan :: is history a lie? :: New CDC director says mRNA is safe and effective :: things according to Jeff Berwick :: David in NM says it’s the Jews, but you can’t talk about it :: 2026-08-01 Hosts: Stu, Angelo.” (08/01/26)
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 08/02/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘Trump Tariffs are Self-Sabotage.'” (08/02/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-08-02_zfw007292026.mp3
- Nonzero, 07/31/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69621.” (07/31/26)
- Show-Me Institute Podcast, 07/31/26
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Declining School Enrollment with Susan Pendergrass.” (07/31/26)
https://showmeinstitute.org/article/education/declining-school-enrollment-with-susan-pendergrass/
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 474
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jim Ostrowski on the high cost of government and defending yourself in New York City.” (07/31/26)
- The Mona Charen Show, 08/01/26
Source: The Bulwark
“China Found Trump’s Weak Spot—and Made Him Back Down (w/ Idrees Kahloon).” (08/01/26)